Insanely great at ultra-endurance races

This story is so crazy I don’t even know where to start. For one thing, Jure Robic sleeps 90 minutes or less a day when competing in ultracycling events lasting a week or more…and goes crazy, like actually insane, during the races because of it. Because he’s insane, his support crew makes all the decisions for him, an arrangement that allows Robic’s body to keep going even though his mind would have told him to quit long ago.

His system is straightforward. During the race, Robic’s brain is allowed control over choice of music (usually a mix of traditional Slovene marches and Lenny Kravitz), food selection and bathroom breaks. The second brain [AKA his support team] dictates everything else, including rest times, meal times, food amounts and even average speed. Unless Robic asks, he is not informed of the remaining mileage or even how many days are left in the race. “It is best if he has no idea,” Stanovnik says. “He rides — that is all.”

During one race, Robic hallucinated that mujahedeen on horseback were pursuing him; his support team pretended to see them too and urged Robic to outrun them. Read the whole thing…this is an awesome and disturbing story. A recent episode of Radiolab on Limits has more info.